If your date shows you a rider's crop, chances are you're not going horseback riding

My Relationships are Nations You Want to Leave

"Keep on truckin'!" I say, in a telephone conversation where my friend has asked me how I felt about a boy I had broken up with, who was neither a friends with benefits or a real relationship. After I say it out loud, this expression makes me think of being a trucker, which I'm not sure how I feel about. But, my friend reminds me:

"That is what you are, truck driving on the road of dating. And the states are like different people. What state was this guy?" Referring to the boy I had just broken up with.

I thought. "Milwaukee."

"Milwaukee. See, I don't know even know what state that's in."

She elaborates. "It sounds like a place where people are searching for happiness and never find it."

I respond. "I think we should offer to create their city website. That should be at the header."

"Yes, and that was this guy," she goes on making me feel better. "This guy was Milwaukee, a place that just sounds so depressing. I don't know anything about it, but I picture a grey awful sky."

"See, and this guy I was "seeing," he was like New Orleans. No no, he wasn't good enough for New Orleans. He had no soul."

"He was more like, where's a place that you think it's fun to go to, but you don't want to stay for long?"

"Miami?'

"Yes. No. Wait maybe Las Vegas. No, no! I've got it! Amsterdam. You don't want to live in Amsterdam. The people there, they just ride their bikes around with a basket of flowers. They don't even really smoke weed when they live there. They're not happy. They aren't fun. You do things there that you are glad your friends are not seeing. Then after four or five days, you have to leave or the cops will MAKE you leave. That's Amsterdam. He was Amsterdam."